Religious Studies

The history evidences: the Local Churches that were historically associated with earthly empires were uninterested in the canonical establishment of local churches under their jurisdictions, and therefore usually granted autocephaly to churches only under the pressure of historic circumstances. No exception is the Moscow Patriarchate, which has incorporated the Orthodox Church in Ukraine since 1686.

Ukrainian Orthodoxy and Ukrainian society suffer from division. The majority of Ukrainian Orthodox believers belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. The rest of the Orthodox community of Ukraine has chosen a different path of self-proclaimed autocephaly. However, neither the first nor the second path is optimal for the Orthodox Church in Ukraine to date.

Ministry of Culture Has No Intention of Warning Other Churches of Illegal Worship

The Ministry of Culture does not intend to warn any churches other than the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) of illegal religious activity, director of the Ministry of Culture’s Department of Religious Affairs Mykhailo Moshkola said at a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada, RBC-Ukraine reports.

Moshkola reiterated that the UGCC had no right to hold prayer services on the Maidan in Kyiv, because it does not have permission from the Kyiv City State Administration (KSCA).

As for the other churches, according to Moshkola, today there is no reason to send them “similar letters.”

In early January the Ministry of Culture appealed to the of head of the UGCC with a request to ensure compliance with the law on the conduct of public prayer services and indicated that priests must have permission to carry out religious activities in places such as Independence Square in Kyiv.

In turn, the head of the UGCC Sviatoslav Shevchuk said that it was the first time during Ukraine’s independence that there was an official threat to terminate the activity of the religious organizations of the UGCC, and assured that the church is not a part of the political processes.